Inner Demons
by Saku - SugarQuill
Summary: Insomnia usually goes hand in hand with your worst thoughts and darkest demons. Unable to sleep at night, Garrus is faced with demons of his own. An exploration on feelings and insecurities brought round by a line from the Citadel DLC. Set right after the ordeal with Shep's clone.


A/N: This was originally going to be called _Hell if I know_, but it turns out Inner Demons worked a hell of a lot better in the end.

This is also my first fic in a VERY long time, so bear with me? OKAY, now I'll shut up. Enjoy!

**Inner Demons**

You can't sleep. You don't know why, exactly. At this point, a clone shouldn't be such a huge deal. Not for you, anyway. Considering all the unbelievable and technically impossible crap you have witnessed and been through over the past four years, it should be business as usual. Except, for some reason, it's not. You can't quite put your finger on it, but there's something about the whole thing that just bothers you. So you lay in bed, eyes closed, unable to sleep, thinking. Mostly about her.

It's funny, really. There's just _something_ about Shepard. Something that draws people to her, that makes them look up to her and respect her, but that somehow manages to be completely non-intimidating. Friendly, even. Mostly. When you haven't gotten on her bad side. She's the great and legendary Commander Shepard, twice savior of the entire galaxy, the first ever human Spectre, banner for humanity's fight, the face of many a military campaign, a solid rock the Alliance can always count on when everything seems lost… she's a force to be reckoned with, but she's also so much more than that. She's a friend, a listening ear, a supporting shoulder, a companion… a lover. She's the person people turn to when there's trouble, no matter how small, because they know she'll listen. She has a knack for always finding the right words to say, and will not hesitate to disregard protocol and regulations for the sake of her crew, her people. She's just… Shepard. Respectable, admirable, but not unreachable. Definitely not unreachable. You know that better than anyone.

You feel the bed move slightly under you, the sheets shifting until a warm weight settles itself on your chest. Your heart hitches, skips a beat before slowly settling back to its normal rate. Opening your eyes, you look down at the head of flaming red hair now resting on top of you. You were so deep in thought that you had almost forgotten for a minute.

Almost, but not quite. Because there is no way in hell that you would forget about the best damn thing that has ever happened to you. Hell, she's probably the only reason you're still alive in the first place. If she hadn't pulled your ass out of Omega at the exact moment she did…

You heave a sigh, your thumb absently rubbing circles on the bare skin of her arm, having adjusted your position to wrap an arm around her, and you wonder what you did to deserve her. Surely you must have pleased a Spirit or two, because for once, something in your life is going _right._ Granted, you are all on a wild mission to save the galaxy yet again, and you're slap in the middle of a war against a force so powerful and unstoppable it's a miracle any of you even has an inkling of hope that you -that she- can put an end to it, but it's still something going right amidst all of these wrongs, all of these failures. _Your_ failures. A part of you -a horrible, masochistic, and extremely cynical part of you- can't help but constantly expect this to go sideways. You push the nagging feeling away. But that is all you, isn't it? Always expecting the worst.

You've always said that it's best to expect the worst, because then there's no room for disappointment, no room for let-downs. And if something goes right? Then you'd have something to be happy about. But Shepard? Shepard would have none of it. Shepard is the embodiment of hope, a hope so powerfully crushing that it drives not only her, but everyone around her. Her attitude towards this whole ordeal had a hellishly intoxicating effect. Her hope instills hope in others, and because of her, just this once, you are letting yourself believe that you have at least a shot at putting an end to this war. A dangerous thing, hope. But also a beautiful thing, represented in a beautiful creature in whom you had found a mentor first, a guiding beacon pointing you in the right direction; a friend later, a best friend with whom you could exchange jokes, quips and jabs, a person who you knew you could trust with your life and who would trust you with hers in a heartbeat, no questions asked; and a lover finally, tender and caring in her ways, selfless to an extreme, shouldering the weight of the galaxy all by herself, giving, always giving, and never asking for anything in return.

When she's with you, the image of the Commander falls away, comes crashing down to the ground along with each piece of her N7 armor, exposing, for you and you alone to see, the Shepard behind the Alliance Officer. The Shepard that's not the war hero from the Skyllian Blitz, not the Spectre or the defeater of Saren or the destroyer of the Collectors, but the person, the beautiful woman behind it all. No Commander. Just Shepard, with all her flaws and insecurities, all her quirks and all the little details that make her who she is.

And Spirits, what you see every time you two are in private is beyond words. She's everything you could have ever asked of life, and _more_. She's not just your lover, not just your best friend, or your safe port during a storm. She's your world, she's your galaxy, your life and your everything. And that absolutely terrifies you. Life has _never_ been this nice to you, and while you wish you could say you were cashing in all of those positive credits you had racked up as compensation for all the negatives you've endured, well…

"_How did a turian like that get a girl like her?"_

You can't shake the words from your head. It had been a joke at the time, a harmless crack about all the looks you'd _both_ been getting that night. Or, at least, you'd thought it was harmless then. Now, as you lay in bed unable to sleep, the words burn into your mind and you wonder how much of them had been a joke and how much was a painful reality masked in humor.

Shepard had looked fantastic at the party, the fact that you were both there on a mission notwithstanding. And, hell, you _had_ drawn a lot of attention. Now that you thought about it, it was to be expected. Most famous human in the entire galaxy, arm in arm with a turian who had -quite unconventionally- made his way to the top of the Meritocracy riding solely on his complete inability to be a good turian and some knowledge on an enemy most of the galaxy didn't even believe existed? Yeah, you were _bound_ to draw attention. Most of the looks you got were awed, respectful, even impressed… but here and there you would catch a human staring at her longer than necessary, giving you fleeting looks that screamed of envy and disgust when they thought you weren't looking… you'd shrugged it off. Shepard had been more important. The mission had been a hell of a lot more important. Some jealous hotshot rolling in credits and glaring daggers at you was none of your concern.

And, yet… how _had_ it come to this?

It had been all Shepard, that was for sure. If not for her, you probably would never have realized your own feelings for her. To you, she was your best friend, nothing more. Not to mention she was _human_. And while interspecies relationships were rather more acceptable nowadays, the history and animosity between humans and turians had not yet fully died down. Your species _tolerated_ each other, at most. A turian dating a human was widely unheard of. Unorthodox. And it went against everything a good turian believed in and strived for. Thirty years weren't nearly enough for the two species to put the Relay 314 Incident behind them, and even if it _had_ been enough, turians had rather elevated standards and nigh-unbreakable traditions to uphold. Turians placed great stock in cultural values, merit, continuing the bloodline… and, most importantly, honor. Finding a respectable mate was of paramount importance. And in the eyes of the more conservative turians -of which there were more than enough- dating a human was as good as sleeping with the enemy. Which is to say, not good at all. In any case, you were far from being a xenophile, and you wouldn't even have _considered_ Shepard as a potential mate if she hadn't brought it up.

You remember that day as clearly as if it had been yesterday. You had been chatting in the Main Battery, something that had somehow become part of Shepard's routine after every mission. If you had to be completely honest with yourself, some dark and yet-undiscovered part of you had probably gone into the whole _reach and flexibility_ thing to see how Shepard would react. The rest of you, though, had been quite clueless. You've never been great at romance, and you've always failed both at picking up _and_ dropping hints. That time, though, the most incredible of things had happened.

_What if we skipped right to the tiebreaker? We could test your reach… and my flexibility._

You'd thought you'd lost your mind. You'd thought you'd misheard. Awfully misheard. But it turned out you hadn't, and Shepard had made herself more than clear. It was… unheard of, at least in your book… but somehow, it hadn't seemed the least bit insane. Now that you thought about it, you'd been more than accepting of the whole situation, and that spoke volumes of what you'd thought about her and how you'd felt for her, even then.

Up until that point, you'd had your fair share of… encounters… but nothing had ever worked out. You hadn't really bothered looking, either, but your family -especially Solana- had set you up with enough females to last you a lifetime. Unsurprisingly, none of them had held your interest for too long. They had all been too stiff, abiding by the law and following the rules. Every single one of them was good at keeping their head down, staying out of trouble and obeying orders regardless of their personal feelings. They all functioned with precision, like clockwork, perfect pieces in the militarized machine that was the turian Hierarchy. They did what was expected of them and questioned very little, if anything at all. They were, in short, good turians. And you, historically, had always been a particularly _bad_ turian. A faulty piece of the mechanism, rigged to explode any minute. You held your own views and opinions higher than the interests of the Hierarchy, and you couldn't care less about the Meritocracy and scaling ranks even if you tried. You had been born under a particularly problematic star and your unruly personality had come with a taste for excitement, adventure and rule-breaking. Keeping your head down and your nose clean was simply not your style, and your life before Shepard had endlessly frustrated you. But back then -and, Spirits, it feels like "back then" had been an eternity ago- you had at least _tried_ to be a good turian. And it had made you absolutely miserable.

Shepard shifts again, bringing you out of your reverie once more as she groggily wriggles upwards and finally lays her head in the nook between your neck and shoulder. Her warm breath tickles your neck, and you suppress a sudden shudder that has nothing to do with being cold and everything to do with this woman who has saved your life in more ways than you can think of. Your mandibles flare in affectionate amusement as she slings an arm across your chest and mumbles something in her sleep, pressing closer, and you let your hand come to rest on her hip.

_She deserves better than me._

The thought comes so suddenly that it very nearly knocks the breath out of you. A knot forms itself at the pit of your stomach, and you _know_ that, wherever that flitting -destructive- thought had come from, _it's_ _true._ Who are _you_ to be with someone like _her_? She's too good for you. True, you've always thought this, but now, in the middle of the night and unable to sleep, surrounded by nothing but absolute silence and the soft, rhythmic sound of Shepard's breathing, this sudden realization seems all too true, all too real.

There's nothing special about you. Nothing great, nothing remarkable or even remotely _good_. What had you done in your life, other than fail? You had had a pretty normal run in the military, nothing to brag about, to be honest, though you _had_ learned a hell of a lot. You had caused more trouble than warranted during your time in C-Sec, challenging orders, cutting corners to bypass paperwork, disregarding protocol and insisting to the point that they'd ultimately taken you off your most important case. You'd finally quit to follow Shepard -and damn were you glad you'd done that-, and you would have followed her to the end of the Galaxy if only you _could have._ Then you had lost her, and with her you had lost your sense of direction and most of your common sense. Devoid of a purpose, having lost a mentor and one of the very few friends you had, life had lost all of its meaning to you, and you had embarked on a rather suicidal mission you'd considered heroic. You had attempted to do the impossible, you had convinced yourself that in Omega you could do some good, you could mark a difference by cleansing that dump of a station and ridding it of all its wrongs. Except you'd bitten more than you could chew, and, in the end, it had cost you ten squadmates… ten friends. Your life was nothing more than a succession of failures, all of them too fresh, too painful. Nothing had ever gone right. Nothing until Shepard.

She deserves better than you, a failure of a turian with a sharp tongue, an acid sense of humor and exceptional sniping skills.

Shepard wakes, stirs and pulls away from you. You jump a little in surprise, mandibles snapping tight to your face in a clear sign of distress that you simply cannot hide. You were caught off-guard, and you feel more vulnerable than you've ever felt in your life. You can tell she's still somewhat groggy, but also alert. Had you woken her? Her green eyes find yours and, even through her sleepiness, she manages a very concerned frown.

_She knows something's not right._

Your heart hammers against your chest, and you realize you're tense; rigid, even. How long had you been like this? You shift uncomfortably in bed, pinned down by her careful, scrutinizing gaze and not entirely sure of what to say… or if you should say anything at all.

"Garrus." Her voice is sharp and crisp. It betrays no sign of the grogginess you can still see on her face, but it is thick with the concern you'd already noticed in the way she's looking at you.

"Shepard, I-" you splutter, a nervous wreck, like a child who's been caught elbow-deep in the cookie jar and is desperately trying to find a good explanation.

"Hey. Hey…" her voice softens, takes on that personal, warm quality it only assumes when she's alone with you. Sitting up, she comes closer, never taking her eyes off you.

You are not okay. Most definitely not okay. Not that you'd ever admit that, but you know she can read you better than any book. Because she knows you better than anyone has ever known you, perhaps even better than your own family.

Her hand comes to rest on your face then; you close your eyes and lean into the touch, covering her hand with one of your own.

"You alright there, big guy?" you know she's trying to sound light-hearted, but you also know her well enough to pick up the worried undertones in her voice. Her hand on your face is soothing, grounding. You open your eyes.

"Yeah, I just…" you trail off, and take a deep breath, then move her hand off your face to hold it in both of yours. "Shepard, I…"

Whatever you were going to say was lost then, gone forever in a calming wave of warmth and love as her forehead came into contact with yours. If it were up to you, you would stay like this forever. This is exactly where you want to be. This is exactly where you belong. You wrap your arms around her waist and pull her onto your lap so that she's sitting across you, without breaking contact.

"Garrus, I don't know what's wrong," her voice, barely audible yet full of emotion, breaks the silence, "and if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. But we're in this together, Vakarian. Don't you dare forget that."

Oh, Spirits, you love her, alright. And maybe you have faults, and maybe you aren't perfect… but now you realize that maybe, just maybe, you've been overanalyzing things all night, just like you always do. Maybe love doesn't care who you are or what you did. Maybe love just _is_. Perhaps it was born from your experiences together, all those fights and all those missions and all those little moments in between. You are who you are, and you can't change that. But perhaps, to her, it doesn't matter. Because she loves you for you, just as you love her for her. Perhaps, just this once, you get to be a little bit selfish, to not question the way things are going, but accept them just as they are and be thankful for it. And, hey, you can definitely live with that.

Perhaps tonight you'll get some sleep after all.


End file.
